


the moment i touched down

by rockinhamburger



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Past Drug Addiction, Past Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockinhamburger/pseuds/rockinhamburger
Summary: David does this sometimes, brings something up flippantly that seems like it can’t possibly be true, but Patrick knows when David is lying and it’s never when he casually brings up a startling and bizarre fact from his life before Schitt’s Creek . . . David doesn’t say anything right away, which is how Patrick realizes that David's story was purposefully flippant. This is another thing David does sometimes, masking how bad a thing was with ambivalence.Or, 5 times Patrick follows up on a story from David’s past + 1 time David returns the favour.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 69
Kudos: 745





	the moment i touched down

**Author's Note:**

> *clears throat nervously*
> 
> I have fallen headfirst into this fandom in the last month, consuming lots of very excellent fic. But it's never long before I need to put some words on the page, too, so here is my first attempt at writing these two and their relationship (seriously, goals). Your guess is as good as mine as to why I decided to start with something so damn heavy. I'm still getting a feel for their voices, so hopefully I haven't completely missed the mark. I just wanted to write a story about these two being vulnerable with each other.
> 
> Heed the warnings above, and here they are again, just in case: **trigger warning** for discussion of past drug addiction, past sexual abuse (not depicted but discussed in some detail), implied/referenced domestic violence (not between David and Patrick), discussion of a past eating disorder (to certain degrees of past), and discussion of past suicidal thoughts. It's possible I have missed something that I should have warned for; please take care of yourself and skip this one if you have any doubts. And if you're interested but have more questions about triggering content, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I go by this same handle on tumblr and my ask is always open.
> 
> Okay, gonna go hide now. Ciao.

5

Patrick’s driving them back from a vendor’s house near Elmdale, David dozing in the passenger seat, when a car comes tearing around the corner and right toward them. Patrick swears loudly and swerves out of the way, driving on to the grass on the side of the road to avoid a collision and to put as much distance between his car and the maniac that he very narrowly avoided.

David’s wide awake now, his hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re okay. We’re okay,” David soothes, voice sleep-raspy. He’s confused that David’s comforting him until he realizes he’s shaking and breathing heavily in the silence of the car. He lets go of the steering wheel and slides a shaky hand into David’s hair, shoving his face into David’s collar and smelling him, soaking in the fact that David’s here and alive.

“Sorry,” he mutters breathlessly when he can stand to be away from David’s warmth for even a moment. “I know everyone says it, but he really came out of nowhere.”

“It’s that fucking intersection,” David snaps, incensed. It’s not the first time David has brought it up. “People take that corner so fast, it’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says dully. A mental image of his car (and them inside it) scrunched up like an accordion forces itself upon Patrick, and he physically clenches his eyes shut to get rid of it.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” David says hesitantly, “but can I drive? You’re so shaky, I think it might be for the best if I finish up? You’re an amazing and safe driver, Patrick; I am not saying this because I don’t trust you.”

Patrick swallows thickly, feeling so many complicated emotions at once. Relief (he doesn’t want to drive right now), anger (that guy almost killed them!), embarrassment (he’s visibly upset; clearly, he needs to pull it together), and frustration (who the hell made David feel like he has to approach this kind of thing like he’s on eggshells?).

The last one wins out. “I’m not made of glass, David. I know you volunteering to drive isn’t you sending some hidden message that I’m a bad driver.”

“Okay,” says David neutrally. Then he opens the car door and starts around the front toward the driver’s seat. Patrick opens his door just before David gets there and steps out into David’s arms. The hug is exactly what he needs. He feels safer already.

When they’re both buckled in, David turns the radio on, just loud enough so they can hear it but not enough to hear what’s being said, and pulls back on to the road. He feels steadier watching David ease into the drive, as the minutes pass and the fields and farms along with them. Patrick loves watching David drive.

“That’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to being in an accident,” Patrick says, as the thought occurs to him. On second thought, maybe he should change the subject, but it somehow seems like the right thing to talk about right now.

“Really?” David says, clearly intrigued, even as he keeps his eyes firmly on the road. 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. Then he smirks, returning to their familiar wise-cracking as he starts to finally relax. “I did get in one technically if you count the time I backed into a parked car. Which, in terms of trauma, is about on par with the one we almost had back there.”

“Yes, it sounds very traumatizing,” David jokes, with comforting levity in his voice. “But wow, 31 years old and no car accidents. That’s impressive.”

“Guess I’m lucky,” Patrick says, and he blinks away the accordion mental image again. “What about you? Any car accidents?”

“That would be a yes,” David says, flippantly. “Let’s just say I knew it was a bad idea to get into Vin Diesel’s car, but did anyone listen to me? ‘Oh come on, David, it wasn’t a documentary.’”

Patrick huffs out a laugh. David does this sometimes, brings something up flippantly that seems like it can’t possibly be true, but Patrick knows when David is lying and it’s never when he casually brings up a startling and bizarre fact from his life before Schitt’s Creek. “Was it a serious accident?” he can’t help asking after a few moments.

David doesn’t say anything right away, which is how he realizes that David’s story was purposefully flippant. This is another thing David does sometimes, masking how bad a thing was with ambivalence. When he does finally speak, the flippancy is there but noticeably forced. “Well, it wasn’t a fender bender. Speaking of fender benders, did I ever tell you about the time Alexis crashed into my dad’s prize 1987 Buick Grand National?”

David’s avoiding the question, which means he doesn’t want to talk about it. Normally, Patrick lets him change the subject, despite how often he wants to get more details from David. And it sounds like a good alternative story, which is exactly the tactic David frequently employs to distract the people in his life away from the subjects he doesn’t want to discuss. _Don’t you want to hear this much better story instead?_

Patrick doesn’t let him do it this time. “David, seriously. How bad was it?”

David sighs with an undercurrent of irritation. “It was a grand old time! I spent a week in the hospital, and no one came to see me because my parents were in Bali and Alexis was in… I don’t know, one of her usual wild places.”

Patrick almost apologizes and changes the subject, but… that’s what David wants, is the thing. “What, your folks didn’t have access to a plane?” he says, trying to keep his tone measured instead of deeply judgemental. He’s not sure even saying it is the right move; sometimes David’s on board with coming down hard on his parents and other times he gets defensive of them, even when he really doesn’t have to be.

“It wasn’t bad enough for them to cut their trip short,” David says, signaling a turn and taking it carefully, his hands tight on the wheel. “They did help. They got me a private room and they set me up with the best surgeon and physiotherapist in the city. Plus, they visited me when they got back.”

Defense it is. Patrick decides not to say what he’s thinking ( _oh, yeah, they were_ really _involved_ ). It’s always difficult to match the Johnny and Moira he knows with the people in David’s stories, even though he knows perfectly well how detached they were from their responsibility as parents, knows it from the many accounts he’s heard about their lives, from not just David but all four of the Roses.

It hurts his heart to imagine David alone in a hospital room for a week, though. He’s not surprised none of David’s so-called friends had visited, but for his parents not to come home early, especially when their money would have easily allowed it… David’s parents clearly hadn’t thought about the message such a thing would send to their only son: that their trip was more important than his surgery-requiring injury.

“Wait,” Patrick says. “You needed surgery? And physio?”

David doesn’t answer right away again, taking the exit that will bring them to Patrick’s apartment. He turns on to the main road before he responds. “I was on the wrong side of the car. Internal bleeding. Herniated disk. The surgery was nothing, and just a few weeks of physio after. It was a chance to catch up on the TV shows I’d missed, really.”

“Jesus,” Patrick says weakly. “So, your funny anecdote about a car accident with Vin Diesel was about a real situation where you got into a crash so bad you needed surgery, and then no one came to visit you in the hospital. And I only know this because I asked follow-up questions.” He hesitates, and then he decides _fuck it_. “You made it into a joke. You do that a lot, David.”

David laughs, but it doesn’t sound like he’s even slightly amused. “Well, yeah, my stories wouldn’t be any fun at all if I didn’t make jokes about them, Patrick.”

“But you don’t have to make them fun if they weren’t,” Patrick says quietly, carefully.

David pulls into Patrick’s parking space, puts the car in park, and turns off the ignition. The abrupt silence in the car is heavy. David looks over and then away quickly when Patrick tries to catch his eye. Then he starts talking, and Patrick doesn’t say a damn thing in case it spooks him into stopping.

“I don’t have a lot of stories from my past that aren’t miserable, Patrick,” he says softly. “Most people have nice, fun stories about their lives. I don’t. I told you before that I’m damaged goods. I didn’t like myself very much, so I put myself into a lot of bad situations because I thought I deserved it. And I only know this about myself after a lot of much-needed therapy.” David looks him dead in the eye. “I don’t think I even realized how fucked up my life was until I saw how people here reacted to stories about it.”

Patrick had grabbed his hand after the first sentence, and he holds on tight as David continues talking well after they’ve parked, talking at length about his very strange upbringing and about his wild and often miserable experiences.

Patrick listens, and he does his best to project the safety and security David might need to be this vulnerable with him again in the future.

4

David does it again a few months after the almost-crash.

David’s just started his skincare routine, which takes about half an hour. Patrick slides past him at the sink to get to the dryer on the other side of the bathroom, to get started on folding his laundry. It generally takes him about half an hour to fold everything, so the one or two nights a week where the task lines up with David’s time in the bathroom is always nice. Patrick loves their bedtime chats, when David is just a bit more open and talkative before bed.

“Oh my god, I didn’t tell you about the woman today!” David says as he’s applying his hydrating face wash. Ah, one of David’s patented Customer Complaints, as Patrick likes to call them in order to tease David. He’s about to tease him about exactly this when David continues his story. “This woman came into the store and looked very unwell. She tried to go into the bathroom but she was very obviously high on meth, so I had to stop her.” Patrick laughs, assuming he’s joking, but David says, “I’m serious. I had a feeling she was going to try to use the bathroom to continue the party, so I had to ask her to leave.”

“Wait, really?” Patrick asks, completely distracted from any sort of teasing now. “Did it look like she needed help? Should you have… called the police, or?”

“You mean, should I have called Jeff to come and put her in that creepy holding cell? They wouldn’t know what to do with a drug user in this town,” David scoffs. “They wouldn’t have done anything to help her. Besides, I made sure she wasn’t getting behind the wheel.”

“What do you mean?”

David leans over the sink to rinse his face. Patrick knows the routine by heart; David has to apply the blackhead ‘superfoliant’ next. “Well, I wouldn’t have let her drive anywhere, Patrick,” David says with a ‘duh’ tone when he’s finished patting his face dry. “I hate to have to tell you that meth users are not safe drivers.”

Patrick laughs in spite of himself. “That is shocking information. No, you said they wouldn’t have helped her, but Jeff’s a nice guy. He definitely would have helped.”

David shoots him a condescending smile, pausing for a moment as he’s squeezing a dollop of superfoliant on to his fingers. “That’s adorable, Patrick. Have you ever even been around a hard drug in your life?”

Patrick fights against the rush of lame he gets sometimes when David talks about his cosmopolitan life. David’s not wrong; he really hasn’t seen a drug besides weed in his life. Still, his tone is a bit stung when he retorts, “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I know nothing about it. They’re supposed to help you when you need it. Why would drugs make a difference?”

David continues his routine, shaking his head fondly. “Adorable. You’ve never been picked up by the cops on crystal meth, obviously.”

Patrick flinches as these words sink in. He hasn’t folded a single item of clothing, and he’s not about to start now. David has his full attention. “You have?”

David waves an airy hand around. “Let’s just say law enforcement isn’t exactly friendly to drug users. They don’t refer you to resources, they arrest you. Because it’s illegal. But how’s that supposed to help exactly? Sometimes they make you attend drug counselling as part of your sentence but it’s not _why_ they arrest you. And court-ordered help doesn’t usually work, since it’s forced.”

Patrick’s mind is reeling. “So, you’re obviously speaking from experience,” he states.

David doesn’t respond, bending over the sink again to wash the second cleanser away. Next is the anti-wrinkle serum. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s one of Betty’s cousins, so I just sort of quietly mentioned I’d seen her when I went by the post office. Not a super fun conversation, but hopefully she can help.”

Patrick’s laundry is not going to be done tonight, that’s for sure. “David. You are very much avoiding my questions. Can you just tell me you don’t want to talk about it instead of doing that?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” David says. The serum is supposed to be next, and Patrick knows it takes three minutes to soak in. “I just think it’s going to upset you, and it’s almost bed-time. We can just talk about it another time.”

“Okay, but if it doesn’t bother you to talk about it, I’d rather you just tell me,” Patrick says after he’s processed this. “I want to know about your life, even the parts that aren’t fun, remember? Will it upset you to talk about it?”

“I don’t know,” David says. He hasn’t started on the serum yet, which makes Patrick wonder if he should just tell David to forget it, to let him beg off. But then David starts applying it, and he starts talking. “It wasn’t something I did a lot. A handful of times, 4 or 5 maybe?”

Patrick starts folding, to give his hands something to do and to make sure he keeps his face neutral; his heart is pounding at the terrifying idea of David high on crystal meth even once, let alone 4 or 5 times.

“I was nineteen, so it could have been really bad,” David continues. “It wasn’t like the time I got taken into the station with Nicole Ritchie for stealing her dad’s Lexus when we were 16. Lionel called it in to scare us, and I was a minor then anyway. But drug possession would have given me a criminal record, so my parents got our lawyer involved, and he convinced the judge that rehab would straighten me out. I don’t know how many times the judge stressed that the money and status were protecting me, and that I wouldn’t be so lucky next time.” The serum has soaked in, so David starts in on the hydrating lotion. He glances over at Patrick as he’s rubbing it evenly into his skin. “So, no record and no jail time. Which was a relief, because orange is not my colour. But they could have; they definitely do throw drug users in prison.” David screws the lid back on to his lotion. “Seems like a bad way to treat drug abuse and addiction, but what do I know.”

Patrick watches David’s fingers as they continue wiping excess lotion into the skin of his throat, and tries to knock loose the shaky feeling in his chest by smoothly flattening a folded shirt. “How did your parents react?”

“Not well,” David says crisply. “I tried to just do the two weeks that were court mandated, but my parents said they’d suspend my credit cards if I left before the six week recommendation.” _Good_ , Patrick thinks savagely. “Didn’t really matter how long I went, though. I did not think I had a problem. Which was half-true; the meth was not a problem, but the cocaine was, a little.”

Patrick has to sit down on the lip of the tub. “A little?” he says doubtfully, squinting.

David looks over at him and grimaces. “A lot,” he amends. “I did the six weeks like my parents wanted. But I had to go back when I was 21.”

Patrick bites his lip, which is wobbling slightly. “So, when you’ve made jokes about rehab…”

David laughs. “Not jokes.”

Patrick doesn’t think he’s found anything less funny. “Did it work the second time?”

David shakes his head. “Third time’s the charm?” he jokes, again. Patrick can’t even bring himself to force a smile. “Finally kicked it for good when I was 25. I wasn’t always using. I took breaks a lot, which is why I didn’t realize it was so bad. I thought you were only an addict if you couldn’t stop. And I could stop, for months at a time, so I thought I was on top of it. But when you OD at a WeHo party and they have to pump your stomach… it kinda provides clarity.”

A mental image assaults him then, of David lying in a hospital bed, pale and thin, and then in a body bag, and Patrick gets up and reels David in, ignoring his fiance’s protestations over the shiny lotion residue on his face. The lotion needs 2 more minutes to set, but Patrick can’t wait that long.

David seems to understand without Patrick having to say anything (which is good, since Patrick can’t speak with the massive lump in his throat), because he returns the pressure and says, “It’s all under control now, honey. Oh, the wonders of therapy.”

Patrick slides his hand up into the strands of hair at the back of David’s neck, pressing his cheek against David’s and exhaling shakily. His boyfriend’s skin feels soft and warm, alive. “Good,” he whispers.

3

Patrick scans the bar for a sign of their bartender. He seems to have disappeared, and Patrick and David are nearly finished their martinis so it’s quite dire.

Patrick usually sticks with beer or the occasional glass of red wine. It’s his aesthetic as much as David’s is strong drinks in fancy glasses. But he’s really enjoying how fancy he feels sipping from a martini glass, and the smooth taste and the little olives that come with one. It’s a little snack!

When David speaks all of a sudden, the subject is olives, which really throws Patrick for a loop. “You know, there was a brief period in my life where all I ate was olives.”

“Not a lot of protein in those,” Patrick jokes.

“That was the idea,” David says with a rueful smile.

Patrick’s confused. “I’m confused,” he says, not as sharp as he usually is, with nearly four martinis in him. “Why were you eating only olives?”

David glances around the bar, maybe also looking for the bartender, then makes an uncomfortable face. “We’re having fun, let’s not make it dark.”

Oh. Patrick reaches for David’s hand. “Nuh-uh. You brought it up for a reason. Out with it.”

“I didn’t want to gain weight,” David finally says after a very long pause where Patrick wonders if David might have gotten distracted by something else in his tipsiness. “Then I realized that celery was a _lot_ more effective so I switched and stopped eating olives. Which is a real shame, ‘cause they’re delicious.”

Patrick frowns as he takes this information in, and then he notices the bartender and motions for two more. “So… you switched from olives, which have actual nutrients, to basically water,” Patrick summarizes. Then he realizes what David’s not saying. “How long were you starving yourself?” He’s not sure he should put it so plainly, if David will push back, but it’s also literally what he just described.

“Um. On and off again for all of my 20s?” David says, like it’s a question.

Patrick rubs the back of his neck. “Is that… still a thing?”

David twirls his martini glass in the ring of condensation surrounding it, but then he looks up and meets Patrick’s gaze steadily. “I don’t starve myself anymore. But the voice is frequently there telling me maybe I should.”

Patrick can’t help the breath he sucks in at these words. It’s not like David has a lot to lose. “Look,” he says, briskly, the alcohol making him bolder. “I don’t want to sound condescending here, and I know I can’t just fix your body issues with a compliment, but like, you look unbelievably good all the time. Your body’s amazing.”

David smiles that secret smile of his. “Thank you. That’s very appreciated. I… mostly know my body’s okay, but there’s just this little insistent voice of doubt in the background that I have to redirect sometimes, like I used to have to do with the Olsen twins when they wanted to try on my clothes.”

Patrick blinks a few times at this. He ignores the Olsen twins thing, aware by now of how David uses humour to shift the conversation. “David,” Patrick mutters helplessly. The martinis have arrived and he clinks David’s glass with his own, unthinkingly. “Your body is… what’s a good enough word here?”

David’s blushing. It looks good on him. He wants to show David exactly how good he looks, flushed like that all over his smooth, tan skin and firm, steady muscle.

Patrick downs his drink and stands up. “Okay. Time to go. I’m gonna take you to bed and strip you down and explore your _way more than okay_ body. Please know it’s not because I think I can cure your body issues with sex.”

“Hmmm.” David stands, too, and knocks his own drink back. He does the secret smile again. “Well, I certainly won’t hold it against you if you try?”

Back at his place, Patrick works himself on David’s cock so he can see every goddamn inch of his fiance’s body, which is utterly perfect for him. He shows David what David’s body does to him while he holds on to the headboard and rides David hard and deep. David holds fast to Patrick’s hips and slams up into him, again and again, and god it’s good. It’s so fucking good.

2

He’s obsessed.

People are getting sick of him, but he just can’t seem to stop saying it.

“My _husband_ says that designer’s overrated.”

“You should ask my _husband_. He’s got an eye for aesthetics.”

“Sounds interesting, but I’ll have to check with my _husband_.”

So sue him, he’s in love with his husband and he likes talking about him. What of it?

They’re at the Cafe for lunch when Roland strolls over to their table with his usual boisterousness. “Dave, Pat,” he greets them, sliding into the booth beside David. “Just the married men I was looking for. Ooh, nachos!” Roland punctuates this exclamation by reaching for one of David’s nachos, which David prevents from happening by moving his plate away with a heavy scrape along the tabletop.

“Can we help you, Roland?” David demands loudly. Patrick blinks rapidly to keep his laugh at bay.

“How’d you know I needed your help?” Roland asks with a grin that’s way too cheeky. Patrick suspects he does this stuff on purpose; there’s no way he doesn’t realize how much he annoys David. He thinks Roland quite enjoys it, actually.

But his _husband_ needs some back up. “Just a lucky guess,” he cuts in quickly. “We’re heading out soon, Roland, so if you can make it quick…”

“Oh, that’s perfect! I was hoping for a lift. To the motel, if you don’t mind.”

Patrick hopes his expression isn’t too confused. “To the motel that’s quicker to walk to?” he checks.

“That’s the one,” Roland declares cheerfully. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Patrick’s phone rings before he can tackle this oddity from Roland. He checks and sees the number of Emily, one of their vendors, flashing on the screen. He smiles apologetically at Roland, and at David for abandoning him to Roland, and answers it.

It’s a quick call, but it still takes a few minutes to make the necessary arrangements for picking up the inventory from Emily’s farm while her car’s in the shop. When he ends the call and looks up, he finds David watching him with his secret smile and Roland watching him with a very amused grin.

“Did Dave change his name or something?” Roland asks.

“No, we kept our names,” Patrick says, confused.

“Are you sure, Pat?” Roland chuckles. “Seems like you’ve given him a whole new name. Husband, was it? About 10 times in that very short conversation?”

Patrick flushes when he realizes what’s going on. He can’t quite meet their eye as he clears his throat.

“Alright, Roland,” David says. “Let’s get moving before I change my mind about that lift.”

When they’ve dropped him off, they get back on the road. “Personally, I like the new name,” David says after a long pause.

Patrick groans. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Oh, I’m not,” David teases. “It has a really nice ring to it. I think we should file the paperwork for the name change.”

“Need I remind you of the ‘partner’ incident?” Patrick says, a touch too desperately.

David just laughs. “Fine. Have it your way, husband.”

That word coming from David is very distracting. He keeps his eyes on the road, face warm.

The visit with Emily goes well. She thanks them profusely for going out of their way, and gives them an extra case of product for free for their troubles, insisting when they try to resist. She says goodbye after she’s brought out the last box and heads inside, and Patrick and David finish loading the trunk with Emily’s inventory for a few minutes, tetrising the boxes into perfect storage arrangement.

They hear it at the same moment; Patrick knows because David freezes beside him.

“You fucking bitch!”

It definitely came from the house, which is 10 feet away from the front drive where they’d parked about 20 minutes ago. David cranes his head around the open trunk. Patrick is rooted to the spot, shocked. He’s absolutely sure that was the voice of Emily’s boyfriend, the man they met earlier over iced tea, who seemed like a very calm and respectable guy. Who is now calling Emily a fucking bitch.

And then they hear something much more alarming: a scream.

David closes the trunk and starts toward the house. “David, wait,” he says, heart pounding suddenly. “I don’t know if it’s safe to…”

“If it’s not safe for us, it’s not safe for her.”

He’s right. And anyway, David’s got that determined air about him; Patrick’s not going to be able to convince him to keep a distance, even if he really thinks they should. People on farms have guns.

But he follows David because he is not about to let his husband go into this thing alone.

David walks right in. Patrick follows, heart galloping wildly, and then gets himself in front of David because no.

“Hello? Emily?” David calls. “Sorry, I forgot to get you to sign one last form!”

There’s silence. It’s an agonizing wait before Emily appears in the entrance way, though it was probably just 20 seconds or so. She has an extremely forced smile on her face when she steps hesitantly toward them. “Oh, right. My mistake.”

“Not at all,” David says smoothly. “I should’ve spotted it. And I’ve just realized I left the form on one of the boxes in the trunk. Do you think you could come sign it real quick? We gotta get back on the road.”

Patrick is… deeply impressed. David planned that quickly.

“Oh, sure,” Emily says, falteringly, but she does move to follow them. Patrick steps out of her way so he’s the one trailing her and David as they all traipse out. He can’t quite bring himself to look back into the house behind him.

David walks briskly to the trunk, opens it, and waits until Emily’s there. Then he says, “Hey. Look, I’ve been through… something similar to what I think I just heard? I want to make sure you have my number in case you ever need anything.”

David passes her his business card, upon which he’s quickly but carefully written his own cell phone number. “Call anytime. If you ever need to get away, I know a place you can stay free of charge.”

Emily’s eyes well with tears. Then she nods quickly and heads back up the path and inside without looking back.

They don’t speak for the first few minutes of the drive, not until Patrick says, “Was that true? That you’ve been through…” he can’t finish, throat too tight.

He can see David nod jerkily, lips pressed tightly together. His body language screams at Patrick not to ask anything more about it. This time, unlike some of the other times, he doesn’t prod at David.

He doesn’t need to, it turns out. 

“There was a guy. I was… way too young,” David sighs, turning his head to look out his passenger-side window. “Too young for him, too young for something like that.” Patrick remains silent, letting David control this one. David continues. “I met him at one of my parents’ parties. He took a liking to me.”

“How old were you?” Patrick croaks out.

“14,” David says. “He was 27.”

Patrick bites his lip on the ‘fuck!’ that really wants to make itself heard. He shouldn’t have asked; he should just let David tell this story how he wants to tell it. If he’d wanted to say old he was, he would have. “That’s so young,” he whispers, echoing David from earlier.

“Mmm-hmm.” David turns again to face the front of the car. “He seemed so sophisticated. That’s what I remember about the beginning. I felt so glamorous thinking I had his attention. I didn’t really realize how fucked up it was until _I_ was 27. That’s when it really hit me.”

Patrick signals and pulls off the road into an abandoned farmhouse driveway. He can’t be driving for this.

David talks, softly and without any of his usual flippant jokes. “I thought I was in charge. I thought I was an equal partner. I couldn’t see the manipulation, how easily I’d do what he wanted if he just… complimented me or said he loved me. He’d tell me I was so precious he didn’t want anyone else to know about us. I was such an idiot.”

“No you weren’t!” Patrick says immediately, vehemently. “You were a kid! Adults aren’t supposed to do that to kids.”

“Patrick.” David’s breath hitches. “I was a kid, but I was also an idiot. And that was for so many reasons. Money and luxury made me stupid and vulnerable.”

Patrick turns sharply. “No,” he says firmly. “Look, I know I should just shut up and let you process this and validate what you’re feeling, but NO. Maybe the money and the luxury didn’t help, but you shouldn’t have to be hardened at 14 and anticipating that some fully adult man might come along and take advantage of you so that you can somehow prevent it.”

David’s quiet for a few minutes, as these words rebound through the car. Then he takes Patrick’s hand. “Thank you,” he says. “You’re right. He was an asshole. He liked to swear at me and call me names when he was angry, when I wasn’t quite so compliant. So that felt very familiar back there.”

Patrick looks down and realizes his hands are trembling with fury. “Yep. Asshole, definitely,” Patrick forces through clenched teeth. He summons calm and slowly starts to settle, running his hand along David’s, lacing their fingers together. “Did you ever tell anyone?”

David shakes his head, stroking his thumb along the skin between Patrick’s thumb and index finger. “Not then. I told my therapist much, much later. It helped, a bit. It also helped when the asshole got arrested on stock and securities fraud. I understand he’s just a few cells down from Bernie Madoff.”

“Excellent. Hope he rots there,” Patrick says pleasantly. David snorts, smiling suddenly despite the painful subject. Patrick squeezes David’s hand supportively. “How long did he- ?” He cuts himself off before he can call it something David might not appreciate.

“It ended for good when I went to Europe. I guess I was too old for him by the time I came back because I never heard from him again,” David says, and Patrick hears a distinct note of disgust in his voice and is eternally glad that David seems to realize, on some level, how fucked up the situation was and is laying at least some of the blame where it belongs.

“Thank you for telling me,” Patrick murmurs.

David turns their hands over and leans in to kiss Patrick, who returns the pressure ever so gently. David sighs. “I’m sorry if I scared you back there, going into the house like that. I just couldn’t leave without saying something to her.”

“Don’t apologize,” Patrick insists, carding through David’s hair with his free hand. “Your bravery never fails to astound me, David. I’m just so lucky you agreed to marry me.”

David laughs. “You sure you don’t want to change my name officially?”

Patrick laughs, too, and kisses his husband.

On the road again, Patrick realizes where his thoughts are going and is abruptly glad that predator is in prison, somewhere Patrick can’t reach him. He’d like to spend the rest of his life with his husband and not behind bars for murder, justifiable or not.

1

It’s way too late, and he and David have been talking for hours, about their lives and about the mysteries of existence, all the while putting off much-needed sleep. They need to be up at an ungodly hour to open the store, and yet neither of them seems to be interested in calling an end to the night and to their exchange of stories and philosophical ideas.

David yawns, and Patrick mirrors him. “I can’t remember the last person I stayed up with like this, talking about the great mysteries of life. Hmm, actually, I can. It was with Adelina, before she left.”

Patrick nestles his head more deeply into his pillow. David talks about Adelina quite a bit. It’s a topic Patrick lets David take the reins on, generally. He knows how much Adelina meant to David, and it’s always struck Patrick as a sacred topic, one that he lets David broach when he’s willing and able.

Which is why he’s surprised when he asks, “When did she leave?”

David hums sleepily. “When I was 13.” Patrick tries not to feel too sad about the fact that the last time David talked like this with another person, besides Patrick himself, was over 15 years ago.

“Must have been hard,” Patrick ventures.

“Mmm. Yep, yes, it was a _very_ not-fun day.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Patrick asks carefully, stretching a hand out to sift through David’s soft hair.

David looks away after a few moments of quiet eye contact. “She had to go home. To help her mother who had liver cancer. I tried to give her money for the medication, but she wouldn’t take it.”

God, he loves David so much, especially 13 year-old David who only wanted to help his nanny. Patrick can’t stand the look of sadness on his husband’s face, wants to comfort him and try to remove it, but he also knows it’s best to reel that impulse in.

“We still send each other postcards sometimes, and she called on my birthday for years after she left. One of her postcards got redirected when we moved here. Last I heard from her she was living in Florida with her husband and her kids. She has three of them.”

“It sounds like you meant a lot to her.” Patrick strokes a hand down David’s neck to his shoulder. “What was the last day like?”

David huffs out a breath that sounds shaky. “I don’t know, Patrick. It makes me really sad to think about.”

“You don’t have to talk about it. Or anything. David, you don’t ever have to talk about something if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” David says, and he closes the distance between them to press his lips to Patrick’s. Then he pulls back again. “She left at the end of September, on the 26th. She picked us up from school, and her things were already packed and waiting in the entrance way. She made Alexis and I our favourite dessert, and we got to eat it before dinner, which she normally never let us do since it would spoil the meal the cook had made. She listened to us talk about our days, and then she told us she had to go home to take care of her mother and that she’d miss us. Then she said goodbye, and that’s the last time I saw her.”

David’s eyes are wet, and Patrick leans in to kiss each one. “I’m sorry, David,” he whispers. “I know how important she was to you.”

David nods and bites his lip. “Things weren’t the same after she left. Sometimes I think that’s when everything started to go wrong. She was… she was so good to us. We were so lonely in that big house sometimes, and she made us feel happy and safe and like the house was a little bit smaller. Less empty. Fuck, for everything we had, there was so much we lacked.”

Patrick acknowledges this last admission with a squeeze of David’s shoulder, but that last truth seems to have sapped the energy from him. Patrick understands. He snuggles up closer to David, arms sliding tight around him and says, “I love you,” and David says, “I love you.”

He hopes that, even for a moment, he’s made the world feel a little smaller and a little less empty for David.

+

The two bottles of wine between the three of them have made the conversation flow in all kinds of interesting directions. Stevie is spread out on David’s bed and David’s lying across Alexis’ bed since she’s away in the Galapagos and won’t be missing it for several months. Patrick is on the floor between the two beds, leaning against David’s bed. He’d slid down here at some point in the last 10 minutes because his jelly legs wouldn’t cooperate with a bathroom trip.

David laughs suddenly. “I just remembered the first day I got here. Ugh, I was a mess. I cried in that bathroom.” He points vaguely in its direction.

“Oh, that day. You and your towels,” Stevie snorts.

David laughs again. “I wouldn’t sit on the bed without a towel or something underneath. For months.”

Stevie makes a pfft sound. “I remember that. Hey, Patrick, what was your first day here like? I can’t relate since I grew up in this miserable place.”

Patrick stills as the question sinks in, doesn’t say anything for what he hopes isn’t long enough to raise suspicions. The wine in his system isn’t strong enough for him to be honest; he needs to tread carefully.

But miserable is a very fitting word for how he’d felt that first day.

“It was fine,” Patrick says, shrugging as nonchalantly as he can. Then he goes for light. “I moved into Ray’s spare bedroom that day, and Ray made breakfast for supper and put on a movie. I think he barged in about five times to make sure I didn’t need anything. I was definitely half-naked the first time he came in. Sadly, the racy half.”

Stevie chuckles, but David’s quiet on Alexis’ bed.

He thinks he’s gotten away with it. Stevie heads out for the night and they get ready for bed, and when they’re under the covers, David scritching his fingers along Patrick’s belly, David says, “So what was your first day here really like?”

Patrick moves closer to kiss David to buy himself time. “It was fine, like I said.”

David holds Patrick back as he leans away from the kiss to get a good look at him. “It wasn’t fine. How could it be fine? You’d just left home, after breaking off the engagement with Rachel. No one’s that well-adjusted, Patrick. Come on, tell me what it was like.”

Patrick’s memory casts back without his explicit permission. He remembers the movie Ray had selected, a film about a woman that leaves her small town to start fresh, only to find the same problems she’d left behind cropping up again. The absurd synchronicity of the movie plot had felt eerily prescient. He’d gone up to bed, and he’d lain there, feeling so hopeless he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive anymore.

He can’t say that, though.

“It was depressing,” he says, instead. But it turns out he wants to talk about it after all, and suddenly it’s all pouring out of him. “That first night, I felt like I’d left every familiar thing behind, and that I’d made a mistake and torpedoed my whole life. I didn’t want to go back, but I also felt like I couldn’t even _if_ I wanted to. I felt trapped.” Patrick scrubs his face with a weary hand. “And honestly? I felt like I didn’t know myself at all. I realized I’d tricked myself into thinking I was this steady, clear-headed, dependable guy when I was actually just misery personified. I didn’t see a way out of the misery.”

David’s thumb is stroking back and forth over Patrick’s hip. He looks engaged and thoughtful. He speaks. “Didn’t see a way out, or only saw one way out?”

Patrick gasps, and then his eyes are spilling over with tears. David crushes Patrick to his chest, and it feels so lovely and loving it only makes the tears come harder. The emotional reaction is probably a little bit due to the wine, but also to the crystalized realization that he’s met a person who knows him this well and somehow still wants to spend the rest of his life with him. He’s overwhelmed by the stark fact that David said yes to him, even though he knew, even though he knows that Patrick isn’t always steady or clear-headed or dependable. Somehow, David seems to love him with all his flaws attached.

It’s a potent feeling.

David holds him until Patrick stops shuddering, his big hands rubbing gentle circles along Patrick’s back and shoulders. Patrick has never felt so seen and so safe.

When he pulls away, wiping his eyes, he tries to explain what David means to him. But words are failing him, so he captures David’s mouth in a dizzying kiss and can only hope that David knows what he’s saying anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Alanis Morissette's Thank U, which was basically the soundtrack for my writing. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
